Lost, But Holding Hands

we were on our way to independence to visit costco and get some birthday party supplies. it was rush hour traffic time. daylight savings time was over and at 5:30 it was already pitch black. ryan was having a difficult time following directions and became...shall we say..."'physically active" in the backseat of the truck. of course, this meant we needed to pull over and wait for him to be safe. after getting himself together i waited and waited for some kind soul to let us back onto the highway. i'm sure people were annoyed about letting me in and probably didn't want to. but sometimes we pull over during rush hour. we got to costco with our unhappy customer in tow. he was hellbent on getting into that over-sized cart and "going to sleep". he informed me to "leave him alone" and proceeded to--butt in the air--roll over and "go to sleep." we got all kinds of looks which were, probably somewhat, well deserved. as i pushed around the g...

Ryan turned 8 at the beginning of the month.  8.  I still can't really believe it.  8 is almost half way to being a full-grown human.  INSANE. On Monday, Ryan and I celebrated just the two of us (daddy was out of town).  He wanted "chicken on the bone" so we went on a mommy-Ryan date to Strouds.  So. Good.  We ate until we wished we were wearing stretchy pants...maybe that was just me. Then pushed the fullness limits to enjoy awesome dirt-cup cupcakes for dessert.  I love a good challenge, especially when it comes to eating! This year, Tyler and I had lengthy debates about what we should do to celebrate Ryan's birthday.  We finally decided on tackling a friends party in addition to our traditional family party.  This was Ryan's third birthday with us, but the first time we were going to invite friends from school, the neighborhood, and sports.  Parties with friends make me nervous...would anyone come?  This was a huge l...